


With a Heavy Heart

by failsafe



Category: Skins (UK)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Community: ladiesbingo, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Sibling Love, Siblings, Sister-Sister Relationship, Sisters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-11
Updated: 2015-01-11
Packaged: 2018-03-07 04:46:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3161729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/failsafe/pseuds/failsafe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Katie is there for her sister when she comes home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With a Heavy Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Tagging does not indicate incest. I just didn't see one with an ampersand, but I can change it if I should. Post-Skins Fire.
> 
> Prompt: Sleeping Arrangements

Katie hasn't seen her sister in months when she hears the news. The last time she knew anything, Emily was in New York. Doing an internship, being important, making something of herself. Katie had been proud but only in the most disinterested way she could manage. It helped not to think about it – distance and loneliness that she would never get used to. She's wondered over and over if it has ever once occurred to Emily to miss her.

Katie comes in from work and she sees her mother sitting in the kitchen, alone, in the quiet, without a light turned on anywhere in the house. She drops her bag on the counter with a loud metallic clattering, trying to anticipate whether or not it will bring any kind of response.

Her mother starts and looks back over her shoulder at Katie. Without a word, she looks back down toward the surface of the table.

“What's going on?” Katie demands when it's clear her first effort has failed.

“That girl,” her mum replies. There's a strange tension in her voice, but Katie knows that at least some of it is grief. Her heart slows in her chest. “She's gone. She's dead.”

“Her name's Naomi,” Katie replies, her mouth moving before her mind can catch up. Then it hits her, a loud disruption to quiet like her bag dropping down on the counter again. Maybe a bit more violent. “Oh my God, she's—”

“She's dead! She's dead, and I—” Jenna Fitch bursts out, indignant and outraged and rising to her feet. She rounds on Katie, and Katie watches her without doing anything but interrupting her.

“Mum,” she snaps. “This isn't about you,” she reminds her, more gently than she'd expected to.

“I know that, Katie,” her mum replies with a leveling of her tone. Neither of them ever want to admit when they've been corrected.

Katie thinks she might have insisted, might have gloated, but it isn't about her either. It isn't about her, so she doesn't understand why her eyes are wet. She fights the feeling and tries to keep her mascara in place. It's something to think about, to concentrate on.

“Your sister's coming in from London,” Jenna announces when Katie's eyes flit down toward the floor.

“London?” Katie asks, but she takes her bag from the counter and turns away before she can get a response. It doesn't matter. All it means is her sister saw Naomi again before she was gone. The details don't matter when someone dies, far away and out of sight. It never does when it happens to – not to, near – Katie. How many times can this happen in one family?

But she remembers, it's not about her.

\- - -

A few days later, the lights are on in the house. Nearly all of them. It doesn't do much to combat the gray drear from the rainy sky that makes its way inside every time someone opens and closes the door.

Emily hasn't been one of them. She's been sitting in the same spot in the kitchen for hours, wearing a black dress and black hosiery that makes her look too sharply elegant and too thin. Katie approaches her from the door when it's barely seven o'clock. The day has been long enough.

She doesn't hesitate to drape her arms over her sister's shoulders, leaning down to speak into her ear so various, random family members – some of whom stare and some of whom sympathize – can't hear a word.

“Katie-sham,” she murmurs against Emily's ear with no regard for personal space. She feels Emily's entire body heave with a suppressed sob. Her eyes burn and flood, and she doesn't care about her makeup. “... Katie-sham,” she repeats, even if she isn't sure that the private apology works for condolences. It does now.

Emily draws a deep, wet breath in through her nose, sniffling loudly. Her voice is barely audible in comparison.

“Em... Emse...” she says, but whatever was supposed to come afterward never does.

“No, no, no,” Katie insists, wrapping her arms a little tighter and leaning down a little further. Emily has nothing to apologize for, and she doesn't have to say anything. “Emse-nigh,” she says – _'Emily go to bed.'_

“Have you forgotten?” Emily asks, a scoffing burst of laughter coming through her tear-thickened voice. “I haven't got a bed here anymore, and _Aunt Sharon_ is sitting on the sofa by herself.” 

“Emily—”

“You know, I don't know why I'm even here. I don't know why _they're_ here. It's not as if they gave a shit when she was alive.” 

“Some of them did,” Katie says, then she tries not to wince. It wasn't the best thing to say, and suddenly Emily is pushing her off and getting to her feet. “Wait,” she demands, trying to keep her still with a show of her palms – empty and submissive. 

“What?” Emily asks, sighing impatiently. 

“Just... come to our room,” Katie says, not sure if it's going to make it better or worse. 

Emily looks toward the door, and for a moment Katie knows she's gone, barefoot in tights and all. It wouldn't be the first time. But as she watches her baby twin's eyes flood and spill over again as she redirects her gaze toward Katie – hiding it from everyone else – she opens her arms and knows she was wrong. Emily walks past them and marches up the stairs, one thud angry thud after the other. 

The room that once contained two matching beds and two mismatching sides doesn't look the same anymore. Emily had moved on, moved out – such a long time ago. In place of the two beds, there's one larger one, the décor less complicated and more half-hearted in a vaguely floral and cream display of mature womanhood. Katie knows that she's a joke.

“It's nice,” Emily says, and Katie can't tell if she's being sarcastic or not. She hopes she is. She hopes she can manage it.

“Just stay,” Katie negotiates.

That seems to be all it takes because Emily's sitting down on the bed, shedding her funeral clothes down to her underwear. She's sitting there on the duvet in a mismatched bra and panties, knees tucked up against her chest before she even seems to remember Katie is there.

“Got a t-shirt?” Emily requests, indifferent.

“Sure,” Katie says, opening the closet and tossing a cheaply printed t-shirt from a clinic in an ugly shade of dark blue toward her sister. It's soft and worn, and that's all that matters.

Emily picks it up in a balled fist and then pops it against the air to hold it in both hands and look at it.

“Anyone tell you you've got shit taste now?”

“I grew up,” Katie says. She doesn't mention that she hasn't had a boyfriend since before the last time she'd seen Emily. She doesn't mention that she never gets laid. She doesn't mention that she sometimes goes to the woman's needs shelf and pretends she's shopping while she tries not to cry. She doesn't mention how pathetic she feels, living at home despite having a decent job. She wonders if she's the only one who didn't leave Bristol, sometimes, but now isn't the time to wonder aloud. Instead, she asks about the closest thing she thinks might be appropriate. Propriety has its place. “Where the hell is Effy? I thought you three were the musketeers.”

She wonders if her efforts at lightening the mood have backfired as Emily meets her eyes. Again, it wouldn't be the first time. Then Emily smirks, gaze dark and a little frightening.

“Didn't anyone tell you? She's going to prison.”

“Excuse me?”

“I don't know. Something to do with her job. Nothing to do with me,” Emily mumbles, and then Katie sees the softness, the guilt creeping in through her sister's anger.

“Whatever that is, I'm sure it's not your fault. Maybe she's enjoying it,” Katie remarks, shrugging off the unexpected weight.

“I'm going to sleep,” Emily announces, clawing the duvet down and crawling underneath it as soon as she's slid into the t-shirt. Her movements are careless and fitful, but Katie can't say she blames her.

“Make yourself at home,” she says anyway.

“Get over yourself,” Emily orders, muffled beneath the duvet.

“Sure you don't want to wash your face first?” Katie asks, the dark smears down from the corner of Emily's eyes burned into her memory even though her sister is hiding.

“Who the fuck cares?”

“Alright, then,” Katie agrees. She goes to the washroom and removes her makeup anyway, entirely perfunctory. Changing into pyjamas, she climbs into the other side of her bed. She leans against her elbow and looks at the lump across from her, just a little bit of hair still visible. “Am I allowed to hug you or anything?”

“I hate her,” Emily announces. Then there's a fresh flood of tears and uninhibited sobs that Katie can feel shaking through her, even while she's not sure she's allowed to touch her. “I hate her for leaving me and I hate her for not telling me. I hate her for not giving me the chance to know what to do now.”

"Well I don't hate her. I... didn't hate her. Not for a long time," Katie says, allowing herself some indignation on Naomi's behalf. It's real and it's strange, but she thinks more than anything it's what Emily needs to hear right now. “Em,” she says. She can't remember if that's what Naomi called her or not. She doesn't know which is better – if it was or if it wasn't. “No one's ever ready. No one's ever ready for someone to... go... as young as we are.”

Emily draws a deeper breath and her sobs and soft wails soften and trail off slowly.

“I forgot,” she mutters.

“Forgot what?” Katie asks, confused but dreading what she thinks the answer is.

“I always forget that you... loved him, too,” Emily admitted. “But...”

“Emily, this isn't... about me or anything that happened a long time ago. But thank you,” Katie says, hardly sounding like herself to her own ears. “Can I touch you?” she asks again.

“Why not? Gotta let another girl sometime,” Emily says drolly, sniffling again. She slowly pushes down the duvet to meet Katie's eyes, her own red and swollen.

“Ew,” Katie says, waiting for eye contact. “I'm your sister,” she explains, realizing that maybe she still has to clarify. She had been pretty terrible in the past. They both roll their eyes, and when hers are focused again she reaches out and wipes tears away from Emily's face. “Not like that you're not.”

“Baby steps,” Emily says.

“Turn around,” Katie orders, and Emily does it without any argument. She wraps her arms around her shoulders, keeping her body a little higher so she can protect Emily from what the world has done to her. The older she gets, the more she feels it, no matter how quiet and boring her own life has become. Her fingertips draw back from Emily's forehead and through the mussed strands of her hair, arranging it back from her forehead and then pushing it forward. Neither of them care how they look anymore. Not now.

“Emse-yu,” Emily murmurs. _'Emily loves you.'_

“Katie-du,” Katie says, closing her eyes as the windows in the bedroom darken. _'Katie loves you, too.'_


End file.
